ARTICLES ABOUT SHRIMP BY DATE - PAGE 4

On my latest book tour, I stayed at the Hotel Vitale in San Francisco, which is just a crosswalk away from the famed Ferry Building, a food-lover's paradise. If you are going to San Francisco, it is worth staying there to immerse yourself in the local food scene. You can taste coffee, fruit, pastry, roasted chickens, spices, oysters ... the list could go on forever. Plan your trip around the Saturday morning outdoor market -- there is nothing like sitting on a bench by the Oakland Bay Bridge, eating breakfast and talking food politics with the locals.

* Intact mangroves worth more than fish farms * Mangroves support sealife, slow climate change * Around a fifth of mangroves lost since 1980 By Alister Doyle OSLO, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Valuable mangrove forests that protect coastlines, sustain sealife and help slow climate change are being wrecked by the spread of shrimp and fish farms, a U.N.-backed study showed. About a fifth of mangroves worldwide have been lost since 1980, mostly because of clearance to make way for the farms which often get choked with waste, antibiotics and fertilisers, according to the study.

From one end of the United States to the other, Southern cooking is hot. And while Chicago doesn't abound with Southern dining options, restaurants like Big Jones, Table Fifty-Two and The Southern - to say nothing of our growing crop of Southern-informed barbecue spots - ensure that the options we do have are formidable. Carriage House, which opened in Wicker Park two months ago, most assuredly can run with this pack. It was created by the same team behind The Bedford, including executive chef Mark Steuer, and as good as Steuer is with contemporary-American dishes, his work at Carriage House seems to come with an extra dollop of passion.

There are at least three things you can count on at every Brendan Sodikoff restaurant. There will be a retro-cool, dimly lit atmosphere. There will be bread; roasted bone marrow with toast is a menu given. And there will be great soap in the restroom. That indicates a restaurateur who communicates a clear identity, doesn't mess with success and sweats the details. Sodikoff already has certifiable hits with Gilt Bar, Maude's Liquor Bar and Au Cheval (and let's not forget his lines-around-the-block Doughnut Vault)

It's not always easy to get more fish into our diets. After all, most of us don't have fresh fish markets in the neighborhood. Mostly, I find myself at my local supermarket pondering dinner options at the seafood counter. Admittedly, I am not a fan of most "thawed for my convenience" selections. Especially if I am not cooking the item within a few hours of my purchase. So I turn to the freezer case where, hopefully, the fish has remained solidly frozen since its harvest. Then I can transport it safely home and thaw it carefully in the refrigerator.

Chinese five-spice powder makes this combo of shrimp, corn, snap peas and bell pepper sublime. Serve with quinoa or brown rice. Five-spice powder is typically made from fennel, cloves, peppercorns, star anise and cinnamon. It combines the five main tastes of Chinese cuisine: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami. You will find five-spice powder in the spice section or in the Asian section of your supermarket (where you will also find toasted sesame oil and rice wine). All these ingredients are also sold at Asian markets.

Fresh herbs make all the difference in this light bean salad that in turn makes an aromatic bed for the easy grilled shrimp. The shrimp and salad are wonderful together, but you could also make them separately. Consider skewering and grilling scallops as another delicious option. Take care when buying shrimp for this or any other dish. Both wild-caught and farm-raised shrimp can damage the surrounding ecosystems when not managed properly. Look for shrimp certified by an independent agency, such as Wild American Shrimp or Marine Stewardship Council.